Rick baker s make up and special effects legacy

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Richard A. "Rick" Baker (born December 8, 1950) is an American special make-up effects creator, make-up artist, and special effects supervisor, mostly known for his creature effects; he was also a creature designer. Baker won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling a record seven times from a record eleven nominations, starting in 1981 when he won the inaugural award for An American Werewolf in London.

Collection close up rick baker

Personal life

Baker was born in Binghamton, New York, to Doris (née Hamlin) and Ralph B. Baker, a professional artist. He is married and has two daughters.

Career

As a teen, Baker began creating artificial body parts in his own kitchen. He also appeared briefly in the fan production The Night Turkey, a one-hour, black-and-white video parody of The Night Stalker directed by William Malone. Baker's first professional job was as an assistant to prosthetic makeup effects veteran Dick Smith on the film The Exorcist.

Baker received the inaugural Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for his work on An American Werewolf in London. He also created the "werecat" creature Michael Jackson transforms into in the music video Thriller. Subsequently, Baker has been nominated for the Best Makeup Oscar ten more times, winning on seven occasions, both records in his field.

He was married to Elaine Melba Parkyn for ten years.

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Baker claims that his work on Harry and the Hendersons is one of his proudest achievements. On October 3, 2009, he received the Jack Pierce – Lifetime Achievement Award title of the Chiller-Eyegore Awards.

He was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Academy of Art University San Francisco in 2008. He also contributes commentaries to the web series Trailers From Hell for trailers about horror and science fiction films.

Baker received the 2485th star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame on November 30, 2012. The star is located in front of the Guinness World Records Museum.

Baker announced his retirement on May 28, 2015: "First of all, the CG stuff definitely took away the animatronics part of what I do. It's also starting to take away the makeup part. The time is right, I am 64 years old, and the business is crazy right now. I like to do things right, and they wanted cheap and fast. That is not what I want to do, so I just decided it is basically time to get out. I would consider designing and consulting on something, but I don’t think I will have a huge working studio anymore."

Acting roles

Baker played the title role in the 1976 remake of King Kong. In the 2005 remake, he had a cameo as the pilot and gunner (with director Peter Jackson) who shot down Kong. He also made cameo appearances in: the John Landis film Into the Night as a drug dealer with a business card; in Men in Black II as an MIB agent helping provide aliens with disguises; in Men in Black 3 as a "brain alien"; in Michael Jackson's music video Thriller as one of the zombies; in The Haunted Mansion as multiple graveyard ghosts; and in The Wolfman as the Wolfman's first kill.

Quotes

So many of my dreams were to actually be able to make a living of what I did as a hobbyIt's a funny relationship that makeup artists have I always feel kind of like a dentist People look at me and think of painI was born in 1950 and watched science fiction and horror movies on TV and was always really fascinated by them